


Pregame/Postgame

by Stingythefish



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Post-Game, Pre-Game Akamatsu Kaede, a look at how the v3 kids are going after the game, also I might end up making this an irumatsu fic because I'm shipping trash and I love miu, also there's a good chance I drop this like all my other writing projects soooo, it'll probably mostly focus on kaede? but I'll definitely bring in the other students of course, oh yeah also there should be more chapters this isn't a one off thing jsyk, pre-game, sorry in advance, sorry in advance for that as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28535559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stingythefish/pseuds/Stingythefish
Summary: Kaede Akamatsu wakes up. She's alive, as are the rest of her classmates. Danganronpa is over, and everyone is sent home, including her. But she doesn't remember who she used to be. How will she cope with being thrust back into her old life?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Pregame/Postgame

_ A poster. A flyer. Bright, flashy letters that say “DANGANRONPA SEASON 53 AUDITIONS”. A tingle of excitement in my heart. Maybe...maybe I could… _

Kaede blinks. The echo of a memory fades. She’s in an airport, people bustling all around her, her duffel bag swung over one shoulder and her suitcase behind her on wheels. People shoot her looks, furtive, curious yet apprehensive. They all recognize her, but no one wants to approach. Kaede represents the end of something they all loved, and they bear no affection for her for that. 

Her parents are late.  _ My parents. _ Not the ones she remembers. Kaede remembers a kind, loving father who always encouraged her to do her best, who supported her in everything she did. Kaede remembers a stern but good mother, who helped Kaede through hard times and easy, who introduced her to music. 

Fabrications. Both not real, an illusion, a fake past created for a fake Kaede. It still doesn’t fully feel true, that Kaede isn’t  _ Kaede _ . She isn’t the Ultimate Pianist. Nothing she remembers is real. Certainly not her parents, or at least, those she recalls.

A couple walks into the airport, and Kaede’s eye catches them immediately. Somehow, she recognizes them. They’re her parents, and she knows this, somehow, though she can’t match any memories to them. Her father is tall, with slouching shoulders and a tired face. Her mother’s face is full of lines, and adorned with thick glasses. Her father offers her a weak smile and a wave.

Kaede does her best to return both, but the actions feel forced. She crosses the distance to them, and stops before them. “Hey, dad. Hey, mom.”

“Hey, sweetie,” her father greets. His voice is low, raspy. It feels vaguely familiar, like the faint remnants of a dream, only the tiniest of details remembered. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m….” Kaede begins, but can’t finish the sentence. She isn’t good. She isn’t even fine. She doesn’t know  _ what _ she is.

“You don’t...remember us,” her mother says softly. It’s not a question; more of an observation.

Kaede shakes her head. “I’m sorry. Your faces and voices are familiar, but I have no memories of you. I wish I could remember. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” her father says quickly, shaking his head. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

Kaede lets them take her luggage and follows them out of the airport. She feels numb, like a puppet being dragged along, no longer in control of her own life. They walk out into a night sky turning a deep blue, signs that dawn is soon approaching. The car isn’t far, and soon Kaede’s things have been loaded into the back and they’re driving away.

Her parents have said nothing since their exchange inside the airport. It occurs to Kaede, as she’s staring out the window at the passing landscape:  _ we didn’t hug _ . She would have hugged her real parents. No, her fake parents. The parents she remembers. These adults, they feel like strangers, like nobodies. They probably think of her similarly.  _ What happened to our daughter? _ Kaede imagines their thoughts.  _ This isn’t who we raised. _

“So,” her father begins, but can’t seem to follow up.

“So,” Kaede replies. What can she even say?

“We watched you,” her mother says. “The ‘Ultimate Pianist’. It was like you were an entirely different person. You’re  _ still _ ….” She trails off.

Still an entirely different person. But how can she be? Kaede feels like  _ herself _ . She’s  _ always _ been this way. At least, that’s what it feels like. Kaede wants to say something, to make them feel better, to assuage their worries. But she can’t. Their daughter is gone. Kaede has replaced her. 

Her father sighs. “Can you really play piano?”

Kaede nods. “Of course. I’m the best in my age range that I’ve ever met. I know all the classics by heart, and I can sight read almost any piece without a sweat. When I was four I took to the piano like I was born for it.” She laughs, before choking off. That memory is fake. She can see the tension, the melancholy in her father’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“They erased her,” Kaede’s mother whispers, her voice cold, hateful.

“They couldn’t have,” Kaede’s father says. “They always brought back the memories of contestants from previous seasons. They’ve got to be buried somewhere in her brain, or in the Danganronpa databases.”

“They didn’t bring  _ her _ memories back. The whole business went under before she even woke up. Her memories might not even  _ exist _ anymore.”

Kaede shrinks into her seat. They’re talking as if she doesn’t exist, as if she’s not really there. Like she’s not real.  _ But I’m  _ not _ real. _

Her parents continue to talk. Kaede digs into her pocket, and pulls out a phone she doesn’t recognize. It’s dull with a simple black case. The phone Kaede remembers was pink, covered in stickers with a miniature piano figurine dangling from it. Kaede pushes away the memory, and attaches a set of earbuds to her phone, putting them in her ears. She turns the device on. She investigated it during her plane ride, poking through every aspect of her old self’s life. The music she used to listen to was lackluster, barely containing a single piano piece, but it’ll do. Kaede puts on a soft tune, and leans against the car window, gazing outside.

Memories come trickling back; recent ones, ones from the last twenty-four hours or so. Kaede woke up in a pod wearing a hospital gown, alone in a room. An alarm was going off overhead. A man in a suit walked in, and informed her of everything. Danganronpa was a killing game show, a long-running franchise that selected real people and made them Ultimates before throwing them inside a scripted simulation for the entertainment of the audience. He told Kaede she wasn’t really the Ultimate Pianist, told her that her memories were a fabrication. A swell of pride filled her heart when she was told that Shuichi had defeated the mastermind--and ended Danganronpa forever, tanking the studio. 

She still hasn’t contacted Shuichi. She hasn’t talked with any of her fellow classmates. Presumably, they’ve all been flown out to their families, to return to their lives.  _ How can we just ‘return’ to our lives after this? _ It’s like she’s being told to step back into shoes that aren’t hers anymore.

Kaede opens her messages. Conversations with people whose names she doesn’t recognize pop up. She reads back through them. Discussions with her parents are short and terse. Chats between her and her friends are longer, full of teasing jokes and sarcastic quips. One person, a boy, she assumes, has exchanged many messages with her. Sometimes flirtatious messages.  _ Was I in love with this boy? I don’t remember him now. _

She remembers Shuichi. Shy, scared, but with a secret strength not even he realized he had. Did she love him? She doesn’t think so. Not like that.  _ Not that it matters. _ She’s probably never going to see him, see any of them, again. They’re all scattered across Japan, with no way of contacting each other. 

_ “Are you going to audition? Could be fun! You’d be famous!” _

__ _ “Nah. I’ve got a scholarship for Tokyo U. I ain’t gonna throw that away for Danganronpa.” _

__ _ “What about you, Kaede?” _

__ _ Me? “I dunno. Maybe.” _

__ _ A flyer, in my schoolbag. Bright, flashy letters. Audition? Isn’t that all I’ve ever wanted?  _

__ _ They won’t pick me. Why would they pick  _ me _ above everyone else? But, what’s the harm in auditioning? Worst case I get rejected and I go on with my sorry life. Nothing new there. _

A light flashes green. Kaede pulls herself away from the window, blinking. Another memory. They’ve been coming back to her, slowly. Bits and pieces. Fragments. Will she get them all back? Or will this be all they are, just fractured splinters of a greater whole, never the entirety? Kaede isn’t sure she  _ wants _ all of them back. She’s curious, of course, to know who she used to be--but more than that, she’s terrified of becoming that person again. What happens if she gets her old memories back, and the person she is now disappears? She doesn’t want to be overwritten.

Maybe it should happen anyway. The world has no place for Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist. Her parents don’t even want her. Maybe she should just disappear….

The car stops. Her father pulls the e-brake. “Well. We’re home.”

Kaede steps out of the vehicle. Her parents’ house is a simple two-story building on a generic residential street, white walls and grey trim. There’s no flicker of recognition inside Kaede as she stares up at it. This is where she grew up?

Her father lugs her duffel bag and suitcase up to the house, not saying a word. Her mother follows him, eyes on the ground. They’re both avoiding looking at Kaede, like she’s some dark stain on their lives. Kaede sighs, before following them up into the house.

The interior is no more familiar than the exterior. Kaede passes by a kitchen and living room, trailing her parents up the stairs to a bedroom. Her bedroom, she intuits. It’s dull, with a simple dark blue bed and a non-descript carpet on the floor. Her bookshelves are lined with manga and figurines, and posters for Danganronpa decorate the walls. She pales. She used to be a Danganronpa fan?

Her father dumps the duffel bag and suitcase on her floor. “You can unpack whenever you feel like it. We’ll...be downstairs.”

He leaves with her mother, and Kaede is alone.

She flops onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. This is her life. Living in this unfamiliar house, with unfamiliar parents, in an unfamiliar city. What is she supposed to do? Go back to school? She’s eighteen, in the last year of high school, or at least, that’s what she remembers. Is she supposed to go to university now? How can she? How can she just pick up where her old self left off, like nothing’s changed, like nothing’s different?

Her eyes flutter closed, and sleep overtakes her, her dreams full of people who don’t exist.  



End file.
